Things We Lost In Fire
by icyboots
Summary: It was kind of funny how, after finally seeing Midgar, the city of which dreams came true in, she missed her cold, boring Nibelheim. Oneshot. Character Study.


so i think about tifa's life post-nibelheim/pre-ffvii a lot. i wanted to know more about her motives regarding AVALANCHE and such so… here's an attempt at backstory?

* * *

><p><strong>Things We Lost In Fire<strong>

* * *

><p>It was kind of funny how, after finally seeing Midgar, the city of which dreams came true in, she missed her cold, boring Nibelheim.<p>

Tifa could recall her small acts of rebellion — sick of the town's quiet life — her father worriedly protesting about her latest fancy whether it was taking martial art lessons or becoming a mountain-guide.

In Nibelheim, everyone knew her — smiling at her as she helped them with their daily duties, the thoughts of what was beyond the mountains, the future she could have if she followed the lead of everyone that left, running in her mind.

What would she give to be as carefree as she was before.

In Midgar, no one knew her — of her history and what she went through and quite frankly, didn't seem to care. She was wary and on guard and mistrustful of all, taking whatever job she could get to have a place stay in for the night, all alone. No father to worriedly ask her about why she spent a little too long at the mountains, and no neighbors to comment on how reliable — "Oh, I can see you as a mayor already!" — she was growing to be.

It was a little over a year when a man approached her in one of the nights she spent on the streets, curiously looking at the many wounds she acquired in her stay in Midgar.

Tifa clenched her fists, already preparing to punch the living hell out of him — she fended herself from many unwanted advances before, and this case wasn't going to be any different — when he asked, "Want work?"

She glared and he laughed. "Right, sorry, wrong choice of words." He pointed at a building across the street with a bright sign reading 'Seventh Heaven'. "I own that bar and I want some new workers. You look like you need it, so are you interested?"

Cautious — "That's the only way you're gonna live in Midgar, girly," she recalled someone telling her — she nodded, her eyes searching for the slightest twitch to flight or fight.

* * *

><p>A week into her new, <em>steady<em> job, Tifa discovered that she was a natural at bar-tending. Mixing drinks and serving them came easily to her as the basic moves Zangan taught her when she was little. Listening to the drunk slum residents as they went on about their life didn't test her patience at all — maybe because her natural desire to want to help out, or _maybe_ because she wanted to focus on another's misery instead of her own. It surprised many regulars how easily she broke raging bar-fights, her 'Fists of Doom' becoming feared as the monsters that roamed the too-rundown sectors.

Upon seeing how she became known between regulars on her second week, Joe, the bar owner, looked at her in wonder. "You're some kind of a prodigy or something?"

Tifa smiled before she barked at a man who was trying to sneak away without paying.

* * *

><p>Joe died two days after her eighteenth birthday, leaving the Seventh Heaven to her.<p>

Despite seeing many horrors in her life, she was still so young, and managing a business didn't come as easily as bar-tending. But if Tifa knew one thing the most, it was pressing on. It was how she survived her first day in Midgar, waking up in a random motel with no one by her bedside, the nightmares of her hometown's fall haunting her.

Seventh Heaven was her home now, and she wasn't going to lose it.

Not again.

* * *

><p>Her first meeting with Barret wasn't really memorable. He was about to fight someone, and Tifa hated fights starting in <em>her<em> bar, so she quickly intervened.

"If you're going to kill each other, do it outside," she said, holding both of them by the collars of their shirts.

The man Barret was about to punch quickly made his retreat, leaving a fuming Barret behind. He didn't stop fuming, he just sat there, angry to the core, until it was closing-time. And instead of telling him to go, Tifa dragged a chair to sit across of him. "So what's the deal with you?"

She had a feeling that alcohol helped him fess up — of destroyed hometowns and desires to take revenge.

"ShinRa's killing the planet and someone gotta stop them!" It was an echo of something she said before, in front of a beautiful fountain that was probably drained by now.

"And that someone is going to be you?"

"Damn right!"

This small exchange would've probably had both of them locked up, never to be seen again. It was the fate of those that went against ShinRa.

She remembered Nibelheim burning, and then ShinRa pretending it never did. "Maybe you will…"

She hoped so.

* * *

><p>Barret brought his little girl along with him. She was a sweet little thing, too pure to be walking through the tainted Midgar. Someone whose future ShinRa had ruined.<p>

Tifa wasn't sure how to handle children, and Marlene, the smart girl she was, sensed it and made it incredibly easy for her.

Every time Tifa saw her, she was convinced of Barret's plan more and more.

* * *

><p>Barret's idea of a recruitment campaign wasn't the greatest one — "You can't just <em>shout it<em> out-loud, Barret." Even _Marlene_ agreed with her on that — so it fell on her to make others join their cause.

Biggs, Jessie and Wedge were the only ones who did, sharing that one point in life where ShinRa screwed them over — and wanting to settle the score — with them.

Picking the name was easy; Barret wanted to honor the group that fell for their efforts fighting against ShinRa.

From then on, they were AVALANCHE.

As the rest of the group were trying to reach to a unified plan, Tifa had the sudden thought that the reason behind the group's forming was too selfish to be in the favor of the planet.

She ignored it, however, locking it away along with her memories.

A future without ShinRa, a future where no one lost their homes, was more important to achieve.


End file.
